The Last Time
by SweetDragonSeeker
Summary: She wants to be whole. She killed Peter. What would a pirate want with a broken werewolf?


**Don't own OUAT.**

**So, this is my first OUAT fic, I believe, and I'm kinda afraid that the characters are a little OOC, which is not something I usually have issue with. So I'm looking for advice on how to fix it, but I don't want flames, kay? Will update if I can get it fixed.**

**SSS**

Standing out in the Storybrook woods at dusk, Ruby is afraid. The curse is broken, and she's not just Ruby anymore. Red has returned, and with her the wolf. Red learned to embrace the beast, but Ruby is 'only human,' and she has yet to accept the animal that is one third of her soul. She's been without it for years, and now that it has returned, she must learn control all over again. The pieces of her soul are together again, but they have yet to fuse back into one; unless Ruby can learn to accept the wolf, they never will.

She wants to be whole; but she's still afraid.

Tonight rises the second full moon since the curse was broken; tonight heralds the second time she will become a wolf in this world of mortals. So she stands alone in the woods, waiting for the moon to rise and sweep her humanity away. In the woods, there is no one for her to hurt.

"Hmm." The sound is soft, but her heightened hearing picks it up anyway, and she spins around, eyes wide, to stare at the man leaning against a tree a few yards from where she stands and looking uncomfortable in the black button-down and jeans he borrowed from Charming.

"Killian." She whispers. She's only known Killian Jones, the fabled Captain Hook, for a little over a month, since Emma and Mary Margaret brought him back with them when they returned from the Enchanted forest, but something about him seems to draw her in. She doesn't know why, but she does know this: she doesn't want him here. Not now. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugs nonchalantly.

"I followed you."

"You need to go. Go back to town." She insists, glaring. She doesn't know why, but she cares for Killian; the last time she was alone with someone she cared for beneath a full moon, she killed him.

"Why should I do that?" his eyes hold amusement, and a challenge, and Ruby bites back a growl that is half anger, half fear. Why does he have to argue?

"Because, I don't want to kill you." She retorts angrily, and he raises a brow.

The moon is almost risen- she can feel it tugging on her, drawing out the wolf, and she shakes her head, backing away from him. "Go."

He watches her for a moment, then straightens away from the tree and takes a step toward her.

She runs. She can hear him following her, crashing through the undergrowth on her heels, but the brush and the trees don't hamper her as they do him; she moves with the grace of the wolf, gaining distance, the moon's pull growing stronger all the time. Briefly, she wonders why Hook is bothering to follow her; what could a pirate want with her, a broken werewolf? Then the moon's call jerks at her, and she buckles, tumbling into the moss. The change is difficult in Storybrook, where magic was never meant to exist, and it'll be several minutes before the magic can slip past the town's mundane barriers to change her shape.

Killian catches up long before that. She hears him approaching, and then he pauses, and she knows he's staring at her. She digs her fingers into the moss against the pain of the coming shift and growls at him through clenched teeth.

"Get. Out. Of. Here."

"A werewolf," he murmurs, dismissing her command, and crouches in front of her, tilting her chin up with a finger so that she can see his intrigued half-smile. She jerks away and forces herself to her feet, but she stumbles almost as soon as she gets upright. He watches, still crouched, for a moment, then rises; once more, she backs away at his approach, barely managing to keep her feet until her back comes up against a tree.

"Red Riding Hood." He murmurs softly, and his smile widens ever so slightly- just as she falls, slipping into the wolf's shape at last.

**SSS**

The wolf is restless and angry, and her front paws hit the ground on a snarl, but Killian doesn't move, standing with his head tilted with interest. She growls and stalks forward, waiting for him to run, to attack, to yell, but he doesn't. Instead, he crouches back down and looks her in the eye.

"So, this is the wolf that ate the girl in the red hood," he muses, echoing the convoluted version of her tale, and the wolf growls and snaps at him. He ignores her, as though he's faced worse monsters than she, and continues as though uninterrupted. "So, this begs the question: where is the woodsman?"

Peter. She killed Peter. The wolf looks up at Killian. Killian, who won't run. Killian, who she doesn't want to kill. Then she throws her head back and howls as the three pieces of her soul finally merge back into one being. She doesn't want to kill him. And she won't.

**SSS**

**Yeah, that was…interesting. Took forever to write, just so you know. Lemme know how I can make it better! Thanx! ~Seeker**


End file.
